Obama surge heightens Super Tuesday drama

Showdown between Democrats intensifies; McCain solidifies lead

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- An eleventh-hour surge in polls by Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton is shaping up to make "Super Duper Tuesday" a dramatic showdown between the contenders for the Democratic nomination, while John McCain is handily leading his Republican rivals in a survey taken before the 24-state contest.

With 52% of the Democratic delegates and 41% of the Republican delegates at stake, Tuesday's election-season smackdown promises higher stakes and a payoff bigger than this past weekend's Super Bowl. Big winners may have their party nominations all but locked up after the returns are in from contests all over the country, from Alaska to West Virginia and plenty of points in between.

"There's a strong representation from every region of the country," says Rhodes Cook, editor and publisher of The Rhodes Cook Letter. "In number, it's basically half the country."

Candidates who bag states with big delegate counts like New York, California and Illinois will certainly have an edge in the competition for their party's nomination. But in many states, statistics suggest that Super Tuesday will be no game to voters, who are reeling from the foreclosure crisis and weakening employment conditions.

About 40% of respondents to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll cite the economy and jobs as their top issue in the presidential campaign, an increase of 10 percentage points in the past three weeks. More than eight in 10 respondents say that the economy is "not so good," or "poor." Almost six in 10 think the U.S. is already in a recession.

Democrats decide

With 1,681 delegates up for grabs between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday, it's the Democrats who have the most at stake in the nominating contests. Republicans, by comparison, will compete for 1,009 delegates. Candidates from either party will have to do well in such delegate-rich states as California, where Democrats are competing for a whopping 370 delegates on Tuesday and Republicans are vying for 170.

When all is said and done, Clinton or Obama will need a total of 2,025 delegates to win the nomination. The Republican candidate will need 1,191.

For the Democrats, New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey and Massachusetts will be the top five prizes to grab on Tuesday. Twelve states including those five are offering 50 or more delegates.

Nationally, Obama has narrowed Clinton's lead over him down to single digits, in new polls from Gallup, the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post-ABC News. In California, the Democrats are neck and neck with each other, according to a Rasmussen poll released Sunday.

But with strong support behind both Clinton and Obama, as well as ample funding for each candidate, the Democratic nomination could drag on beyond Super Tuesday, argues Cook.

"Recent dynamics would argue in favor of a knockout, a quick ending," Cook says. But this year, "it's not the normal type of primary season."

Suffering states

Along with the war in Iraq, economic issues like health care, jobs and housing are playing out prominently in the campaign -- including in some Super Tuesday states. Employment conditions including new job growth and unemployment worsened in Arizona and Missouri in December, for example, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. With 56 delegates at stake for Democrats in Arizona and 72 in Missouri, both those states are among the bigger prizes on Tuesday.

Arizona, moreover, is one of the states that has been hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis, ranking eighth on a list of total foreclosure filings for 2007. The state saw nearly 70,000 filings in 2007, according to RealtyTrac, the online marketplace for foreclosure properties. Out of the top 10 states for foreclosure filings in 2007, five are holding primaries or caucuses on Super Tuesday, including California, Illinois and Georgia.

Obama currently leads Clinton in Georgia, where about half of the Democratic primary voters are African-American. Should Obama carry the state on Tuesday, he'd pick up 87 delegates.

On Friday, after a night spent civilly debating the Iraq war and health care, Clinton and Obama both took a swipe at President Bush's handling of the economy and said tax rebates and unemployment benefits should immediately be extended to families.

"It is time to provide immediate relief to families who are struggling in this economy, and it's time to turn the page on the failed Bush policies of tax breaks for those who didn't need them," Obama said in a statement.

Republicans spread out

Republican contenders John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have fewer delegates to fight for on Tuesday. But their big-ticket states are more widely spread out. Sen. McCain and ex-governors Romney and Huckabee have the most delegates at stake in California, New York, Georgia, Illinois and Tennessee.

McCain is leading in all of those states, according to averages of polls by RealClearPolitics. In the Gallup/Pew/Washington Post-ABC polls, McCain leads Romney nationally by 19 percentages points.

McCain's home state of Arizona is getting hit with a triple-whammy of foreclosures, worsening job conditions and a projected budget gap of as much as 16% in 2009.

While no candidate has called for a housing bailout, McCain said last week that efforts by the Bush administration to facilitate refinancing of troubled loans may have to go farther. At a debate on Wednesday in California, he called for changes to rules that govern disclosure on consumer-mortgage documents.

McCain is leading Romney in Arizona by sixteen percentage points.

With 170 delegates up for grabs in California and 98 in New York, McCain, Romney and Huckabee will have to focus intensely on those contests. But doing well in the South will also stand a Republican in good stead on Tuesday: Georgia has 69 Republican delegates and Tennessee has 52.

Georgia is among the states worst-hit by the housing downturn, according to RealtyTrac, ranking seventh-worst in foreclosures for 2007.

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